


Lungs of Lisianthus

by roswyrm



Series: you could build a garden [1]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: :), Angst, Hanahaki Disease, Language of Flowers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-16 17:05:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16499330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roswyrm/pseuds/roswyrm
Summary: Lisianthus- showing someone how much you appreciate them, especially for their social skills or warm personality; the bonding of two people.





	1. Poppies

**Author's Note:**

> I know. I'm cringing too. Anyway, all the symbolism for these dumb flowers is in the summaries. Working Title: _ur doin hanahaki. bottom of the barrel huh._

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Poppies- a lively imagination; beauty and success; extravagance and luxury_

It's a _love_ story. At least, that's always how it's told. Person A, on the brink of death, confesses their love. Person B, sat tearfully by their bed, exclaims that it's not unrequited love at all! And then everything is better forever, happily ever after.

That's never how it happens. Recovery can take years. If they're bedridden because of all the flowers, there's no way they could speak. All of the coughing will have torn up their throat, especially if they're coughing up roses. And usually, when it's out that their lungs are essentially greenhouses, it tends to get around fast enough that by the time Person A confesses, Person B has already heard it from half the town. And it can take weeks of magic and surgery and support from their loved one to get them back to somewhat-healthy.

It's another thing Zolf doesn't like about this book. It's not a _romance_ novel, but there's a Hanahaki subplot shoe-horned in, as is so typical in stories like these. Oh, you want to hear about rooftop chases and back-alley duels? Well, you'd better be prepared to read three paragraphs of symbolism on poppies, or whatever. It's stupid.

Well, if Zolf ever starts hacking up poppies, he'll know that he's in love with the guy for his money. Or his imagination, or something. Zolf only barely skimmed those paragraphs, to be honest.


	2. Purple Iris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Purple Iris- wisdom; respect; compliments_

It’s something he picked up in Kew. That’s got to be it. Because Zolf doesn’t have feelings, unrequited or otherwise, for anyone on his team. He doesn’t.

The purple flower he’d just coughed up lies accusatorily on the bed, disagreeing. Zolf sighs. He picks up the (slightly bloodied) flower and drops it into the trash. No one's going to look in the wastebin of Hamid's guest room. And if they do, he'll deal with it then.


	3. Black Dahlia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Black Dahlia- commitment to a certain idea; a warning of betrayal_

"You alright?" asks Sasha, reaching out to try and hold Zolf up. Zolf coughs harder, doubled over and losing breath. He tries to tell her that he's fine, but all that comes out are dark red petals. He closes them in his fist and clears his throat. Sasha bends down and grabs a petal he must have missed off of the ground. _Shit._

Hamid turns back. "Zolf? Are you okay?" he asks, face pinching together in concern. Sasha tucks the petal into one of her pockets. She shoos Hamid away and continues to hold Zolf steady.

She covers, "He's fine. Come on, boss." and half-helps half-drags him off to a more private room. They've got run of the house, after all. As soon as she shuts a door behind them, she drops him. He stumbles, but he doesn't fall. "Who is it?"

He crushes the flower in his palm. "I don't know what you're talking about." He tells her. Sasha fixes him with a glare and pulls the petal out of her pocket; she holds it up like she expects him to flinch away. He grabs at it, but she holds it higher than he can reach.

She snaps, "I'm not dumb." Zolf glares. He knows she's not dumb, but he was hoping she'd be a little less observant. "Who is it?" She repeats. It comes out as more of a command than a question. Zolf groans.

"You can't tell. I know it's the third year all over again, but you _can't_ tell him I..." Zolf's dignity is already pretty much gone, he might as well embarrass himself in front of his employee by talking like a little kid, " _like_ him."

Sasha rolls her eyes. "Telling is how you get rid of it," she informs him like he hasn't been trying to find literally any other cure. He raises an eyebrow at her. She shrugs. "Fine. _But,_ if you start hurling roses, I'm gonna have to." He raises the other eyebrow. She raises both of hers in a _well?_ fashion. Zolf pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Hamid."  
"Pardon?"

Slightly louder, he (mumbles) says, "Hamid."

Sasha fixes him with a deeply unimpressed look. “Zolf, if you don’t tell me, I’m gonna go tell Bertie you fancy him.”

“Dear god, please no. It’s not him, anyway.”  
“I know, but you asked me not to tell Hamid.”  
“Wh-- _if you knew it was Hamid then why did you want me to tell you?”_

She smirks at him. "Talking about feelings makes the flowers go away faster." For half a second, Zolf's impressed. The second passes, and he whacks her on the hip for being a prat.


	4. White Peony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _White Peony- love between strangers; embarrassment or regret_

Hamid smiles at him, and he nearly hacks up ruffled white petals streaked with red in the middle of the jail cell. It’s ridiculous. Hanahaki is supposed to be for unrequited love! For Romeo & Juliet tragedies, for angsty romance novels. It’s _not_ supposed to be for a stupid crush on someone he's only known for a month that should go away any day, now.


	5. Stargazer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Stargazer- optimism; reaching goals_

Hamid’s terrified about the case, and Zolf could just pop him on the _shoulder_ to cast Enhance Diplomacy, but no. No, Zolf’s an _idiot_ with a useless schoolyard crush, so he takes Hamid’s _hand_. And then Hamid squeezes his hand in the middle of casting, and that screws him up because suddenly, all of his concentration is gone. 

Zolf manages to re-cast, and as soon as he finishes, flowers crowd his throat. He doesn't cough. Hamid does, uncharacteristically awkward, dropping Zolf's hand. He leans into Zolf, slightly (and Zolf's going to choke on these stupid weeds, isn't he?) "I'm sorry," Hamid whispers, "I didn't mean to-- that was improper of me. Thank you, though. For the spell." Zolf smiles, tight-lipped, and prays there's a bin he can lean over discreetly.

He's feeling very sick.


	6. Orange Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Orange Rose- love from friendship_

It's fine. It's fine, it's totally fine, he's _fine_. Breathing hurts because of the roots in his lungs, and he's pretty much lost his voice, but he's fine. Everybody else is asleep on the beach, and he's not on watch, because he wants to go to bed too, but. Sasha looks. _Cute_ , for lack of a better word, when she's asleep. Peaceful. Not younger, because if she got much younger she'd still be a teenager, but she looks happy. Or, not angry, at the very least. It distracts him.

And Hamid looks... also cute. Different kind of cute, obviously, but-- yeah. He looks worried, and Zolf wants to find out why so he can fix it, and it's stupid. This whole thing is _stupid_. And the rose he hacks up is stupid, and so are its thorns. And he'd tell the rose this if it hadn't cut open his _stupid_ throat. 

"Zolf?" murmurs Hamid, still mostly asleep. Zolf waves a hand and hides the rose behind his back. Hamid rolls over and goes back to sleep. Zolf sets the rose down at a distance and Sparks it. Evidence of his hopeless crush goes up in smoke. He lies down away from his party members and closes his eyes.

It's fine. 

He has to get up for a second to spit out some of the blood that's made its way into his mouth. It's _fine_.


	7. White Heather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _White Heather- good luck; fulfilment of a goal_

The ocean swirls around him. That's not right. He fell asleep on a beach-- they'd made it out.

The boat (sturdier than the one he crossed the channel in) is completely still, at odds with the storm raging around him. This is a dream. He sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. "I've said it before, I'll say it again: this better not be in real time." The darkest part of the sea seems to snarl, but Zolf's not entirely sure he's not projecting what he thinks should happen.

After a minute (far too long to be a dream-minute, so this one's in real time like the last one was), the darkest part of the sea separates. A man made of water emerges. He doesn't really have any clear _limbs_ , but he's human-ish. Zolf takes a step back (oh, this is one of the dreams where he has both of his legs back, that's going to suck when he wakes up) and Poseidon steps onto the boat. 

And then sits down, perfectly casual, like he isn't, y'know, _a literal god_. Zolf keeps standing, staring at the actual, constantly-furious _embodiment of the sea_ who's sitting criss-cross applesauce in a dream he made to talk to _Zolf._ Poseidon gestures for him to sit. 

Zolf sits.

The water that's making up Poseidon's chest-adjacent-whatever-it-is parts cleanly down the middle, and he pulls out a flower. It's several flowers, actually, a dozen little white ones Zolf recognises from the cliffs back home. "What-- what does this mean?" he asks, and the god scowls. 

It's weird, watching a smooth plane of water in vaguely the shape of a head scowl. Poseidon holds the flower out to Zolf. _Take it,_ Zolf thinks, but he doesn't know what will happen after that. But hey, he's made worse decisions without the help of a god. He reaches out for the heather and

wakes up.

"Helpful," he mutters darkly in the general direction of the channel. The channel says nothing.


	8. Morning Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Morning Glory- mortality; love in vain_

"You said you'd tell him!" hisses Sasha, keeping her voice low in case Hamid or Bertie wake up.

Zolf doesn't look at her. (His chest aches all the time, and he's eighty per cent sure if inhaling some herbicide wouldn't definitely kill him, he'd do it to get rid of the weeds in his lungs.) "I did. And then I changed my mind." (He can't get too close because it'll kill him when Hamid says no, he can't go too far away because it'll kill him when Hamid looks at him with sadness and worry. Lose/lose situation.) "I'm fine, Sasha."

Her hands flick in what might be signed rambling or what might be frustration. Or some combination. (Zolf's learned a little from when she woke up panicked, so terrified she couldn't speak. He understands, "no" and "why" and "dumb". He doesn't follow the rest, but he can guess it's not flattering.) 

Zolf signs, "Sorry." because it's all he really knows, and Sasha smacks him on the shoulder. The lights are off, but he thinks there's a glint to her eyes where the signs from Paris reflect off them.

She snaps, "You're not. You're not fine, and you're not sorry. You need to _tell him_ , because I don't--" her voice breaks. She clears her throat. 

(She swipes the sleeve of her leather jacket across her face, and she isn't wiping away a tear, because Sasha doesn't cry. She must have something in her eye. They understand each other in this.)

Quieter, so quiet he has to lean in to hear it, she says, "You're my boss. And you're my _friend_. And I'd miss you. And I already miss _so many people_ , Zolf. I don't want you to be one of them. Just-- tell him." 

Zolf sighs. "Fine. In the morning. You're gonna have to distract Bertie, though. I don't want him anywhere near that conversation." Sasha looks at him, lips pursed and eyes full of pity. "Sasha."

"I know," she mutters, "I know." She begins toward the rooms but stops halfway there. She turns around and drags him into a swift hug before practically bolting down the hall. "Night," she says, and then she's gone.

(She slipped a bag of coins into his pocket. The note attached says, _They've got good doctors here. Just in case._ It's nice of her, even if he's not going to take the offer. It feels nice, having friends. Zolf doesn't want to go and get those feelings cut out of him.)


	9. Anemone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Anemone- forsaken or forgotten love; death; bad luck_

Something is wrong. 

(Obviously, something is wrong, Zolf woke up in a tank missing both of his legs. Sasha didn't have her organs in her body. Hamid's arm was cut open along with his suit.)

Hamid cries into his shoulder, and Zolf doesn't feel any flowers. He doesn't feel-- much of anything, really? Like, he understands that Hamid is having an emotional breakdown, but Zolf doesn't? Care? It's not how things have been. It's not how things should be.

The only thing that really _concerns_ him is the fact that Hamid is going to cry his eyeliner on Zolf's beard. So he half-pats and half-pushes Hamid, trying to comfort the halfling without getting too close. For some reason, he doesn't feel quite... _comfortable_ with closeness. 

(Like when they met. Like when Hamid was an overly-touchy employee. Except now, Zolf doesn't want to put up with it. Except now, it's something to put up with.)

("Are you aware of the idea of consent?"  
"What is consent?"  
"Right, thought not. Did I _ask_ you to cut off my other leg?"  
"No! You were unconscious. You also didn't ask me to remove the roots from your lungs, but I thought that they were very inefficient. Why were there roots in your lungs, Zolf?")

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the Bad End. maybe the Good End and True End are coming soon. maybe it's because i want to write happy things. maybe it's because i found more flowers. maybe it was audrey's squeaky german. who's to say? check me out on tumblr @roswell-the-wrongdoer where i post snippets from rqg episodes three days after its been released because i'm an odd little goblin. i love you.


End file.
